The Philosophy of Eclecticism

To me the philosophy of Eclecticism seems like a cop-out. I find it hard to believe that all philosophies, as different as they might be, can be tied into one— forced together in some sort of “natural” way, gathered, sewn together— without being downsized. I feel as if Eclectics are just little the middle person in the argument who agrees with both sides, saying that both arguments are right in some way, just so that they won’t have to think to hard about solving the problem. I know that this school of thinking developed because there were no new philosophies coming out and everything was falling into repetition, but I would rather repetition than submission. I believe that it would be better to continue being Epicureans, Stoics, Pythagorean, Aristotelian, etc. than just abandoning logic and metaphysics, putting everything into a big bowl, mixing it up, and saying “this is what I believe!” There is no reason or sense in substituting one set of logical foundations for another; this leaves philosophy shallow and weak. This philosophy can also be interpreted as weak because of its lack of a purpose. Yes, it unified the philosophies but what ultimate question was it trying to solve? Or was it just trying to make everyone from Rome to Greece happy (appeasement of the masses)? I honestly don’t know but hope to find out. Some of the theories presented by this philosophy, especially those on the soul, seem to have some worth and seem to be very complicated to understand (I have come to learn that the more complicated the theory that the better the concept turns out to be in the end) so this philosophy seems worthy of further investigation. I just hope that I can understand the explanation of the soul given by Plotinus because I think that that would be something interesting topic to talk over with a stranger on the streetcar when there is a delay.

Blog for week of march28th-april1st

Eclecticism was very interesting to me. I felt like it solved a lot of problems other Hellenistic philosophers had. However, it was somewhat stagnate with innovative ideas. I feel like at this time period we are still in a eclectic age. It made sense that it evolved during a sterile time period where schools oh philosophy were not present. Ethical polarization was probably the bright spot in their philosophy. All throughout Hellenistic philosophy the metaphysical world view and the ethical world view were very much disconnected. Eclecticism demonstrated how influential it was to philosophy when Plotinus emerged. It is evident in his philosophy when he explains the three hypo-stasis, which I am still very confused on. So far, i can agree with it, but im still going to need further explanation and elaboration on the theory before i can form a complete opinion.